The present invention relates to an improved process or method for transferring a coating onto at least one surface of a lens blank which can be implemented in a short period of time without any risk of deformation of the lens blank.
It is a common practice in the art to coat at least one face of an ophthalmic lens with several coatings for imparting to the finished lens additional or improved optical or mechanical properties.
Thus, it is usual practice to coat at least one face of an ophthalmic lens, typically made of an organic glass material, with successively, starting from the face of the lens, an impact resistant coating (impact resistant primer), a scratch resistant coating (hard coat), an anti-reflecting coating and, optionally, a hydrophobic top coat. Other coatings such as polarized coating, photochromic or dying coating may also be applied onto one or both faces of the ophthalmic lens.
Numerous processes and methods have been proposed for coating a face of an ophthalmic lens.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,061,518 discloses a process for fabricating an article having a replicated coating with a durable dielectric overcoat thereon which comprises forming onto an optically polished surface of a master a release layer, a protective coat and a reflective coat, applying a pre-measured amount of an epoxy resin adhesive on a face of a support member of casting, and thereafter transferring the coating from the master to the support member of casting by applying the coating face of the master to the epoxy resin adhesive, curing the epoxy resin adhesive under heat and withdrawing the master. The support member of casting is preferably an aluminium casting. The described method is particularly suited for making mirrors.
WO 99/24243 discloses a method of making a thermoplastic lens by placing a laminated layer/coating having the desired lens characteristics required for the prescription between a preheated lens blank and preheated mold halves and pressing the mold halves toward each other to compress the lens blank and uniformly apply the layer/coating thereon without any creases or cracks therein.
In this method, the lens molds are pressed toward each other and against the lens blank to immediately size down the lens blank and any laminations included therewith to its finished lens size with the desired layer coatings in few minutes. In fact, the lens blank and juxtaposed laminations are compressed at a predetermined programmed rate of speed, whereby the lens blank is compressed and spread out into the mold cavity with a layer/coating uniformally applied thereon.
In order to obtain the required geometry for the final lens, spreading of the blank must be carefully controlled and therefore heating and compression have also to be carefully controlled.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,512,371 discloses a composite plastic optical quality lens, comprising a plastic lens preform of optical quality material, and a cured plastic attached portion that is bonded to said plastic lens preform portion; said cured plastic attached portion having higher scratch resistance, and lower chromatic aberration than said plastic lens preform.
Such a lens is obtained by pouring a lens composition in a molding cavity delimited by a mold part and a lens preform and then curing said lens composition.
According to one preferred embodiment of U.S. Pat. No. 5,512,371, coatings may be provided on the resultant lens by transferring coatings from the mold to the resultant lens.
The purpose of U.S. Pat. No. 5,512,371 is to substantially modify and improve the mechanical properties of the plastic lens preform, generally made of bisphenol A polycarbonate. In particular, properties such as edging and chromatic aberration of the whole resultant lens are supposed to be significantly modified by the cured attached portion. Such results are achievable only for cured attached portions having a thickness globally in the same range or even higher than the thickness of the preform, taking into account that the usual center thickness of the final resultant lens is generally, as known in the art, of more than 1 mm.
If it was not the case, the modifications brought by the cured portion would have no significant effects on the properties of the composite lens such as chromatic aberration and edging.
WO 93/21010 also relating to the manufacture of composite lenses gives a minimum thickness for the preform: 100 microns, with typical thickness of 0.5 to 1.5 mm.
In general, it is difficult to manufacture and handle preforms that are less than 500 microns thickness.
Based on the above elements, it is clear that thicknesses for the cured attached portion of U.S. Pat. No. 5,512,371, even if not specifically mentioned, are typically around 0.5 mm or above.
According to the method of manufacture described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,512,371, a resin is poured in a mold and a lens polycarbonate preform is placed on the top of the resin filled mold, slight pressure is applied to squeeze out excess resin until a carrier of sufficient thickness is obtained.
The assembly lens preform/mold part is held together with the capillary action of the resin material and the weight of the lens preform.
It is an object of the invention to provide a process or a method for transferring a coating from a support onto at least one surface of a lens blank which does not entail any deformation of the lens blank.
It is an additional object of this invention to provide a process or a method for transferring a coating from a support onto at least one surface of a lens blank which further does not necessitate the use of specific mold parts for each prescribed final lens geometry.
In accordance with the above objects and those that will be mentioned and will become apparent below, the process or method for transferring a coating from at least one mold part onto at least a geometrically defined surface of a lens blank comprises:
providing a lens blank having at least one geometrically defined surface;
providing a support having an internal surface bearing a coating and an external surface;
depositing on said geometrically defined surface of said lens blank or on said coating a premeasured amount of a curable glue;
moving relatively to each other the lens blank and the support to either bring the coating into contact with curable glue or bring the curable glue into contact with the geometrically defined surface of the lens blank;
applying a sufficient pressure onto the external surface of the support so that the thickness of a final glue layer after curing is less than 100 micrometers;
curing the glue; and
withdrawing the support to recover the lens blank with the coating adhered onto the geometrically defined surface of said lens blank.
In one embodiment of the process of the invention, the pre-measured amount of the curable glue may consist in the external layer of the coating itself, in particular an impact-resistant primer layer of the coating to be transferred. This could be the case when the impact-resistant primer layer comprises UV polymerizable (meth)acrylate monomers. It can also be the anti-abrasion layer, in particular when no primer layer is to be transferred to the blank.
It also can be the external layer of an anti-reflective coating, in particular when only such an anti-reflective coating is being transferred. In that case, of course, the anti-reflective coating is deposited in a liquid form.
In an other embodiment of the inventive process an adhesive primer layer may be deposited on the blank, prior to the deposition of the pre-measured amount of the curable glue.
Of course, the pre-measured amount of curable glue can be deposited in any appropriate form such as in the form of a drop or of a layer.
By geometrically defined surface of the lens blank or of a mold part, there is meant either an optical surface, that is a surface of required geometry and smoothness or a surface having a required geometry but that may still exhibit some roughness, such as a lens blank that has been grinded and fined, but not polished to the required geometry. The surface roughness typically ranges from Sq 10xe2x88x923 xcexcm to 1 xcexcm, preferably from 10xe2x88x923 to 0.5 xcexcm and most preferably from 10xe2x88x923 to 0.1 xcexcm.
By optical surface, there is meant a surface of the lens blank or of a mold part that has been grinded, fined and polished or molded to required geometry and smoothness.
An important feature of the process of the present invention is that the transfer of the coating onto the geometrically defined surface of the lens blank is performed without any substantial compression of the blank and thus without any risk of deformation of the blank geometry and in particular of the geometrically defined surfaces thereof.
Nevertheless, the pressure exerted on the external surface of the support is preferably substantially maintained at least up to the gelling of the glue. Maintaining the pressure can be effected through the use of an inflatable membrane placed on the external surface of the support.
Preferably, the applied pressure ranges from 5 to 20 Psi (0.3 to 3 kgf/cm2).
Using the above described process, coatings may be transferred successively or simultaneously to both front and rear geometrically defined surfaces of the lens blank.
The coating support may simply be a thin supporting film made of an appropriate material such as a plastic material, for example a polycarbonate film. The coating support is preferably a mold part made of any appropriate material, preferably made of a plastic material and in particular of polycarbonate.
The mold part may be rigid or flexible, but is preferably flexible. Using rigid mold parts necessitates to have a large number of mold parts each comprising an geometrically defined surface whose geometry is adapted to a specific geometry of the geometrically defined surface of a lens blank. In order to avoid the necessity of having such a huge number of different mold parts, the mold part is preferably a flexible mold part, in particular a flexible mold part made of a plastic material such as polycarbonate. When using this flexible mold part it is only necessary to provide the mold part with a surface the geometry of which conforms to the general shape of the optical surface of the lens blanks onto which the coating is to be transferred, either a concave or convex shape, but it is not necessary that this surface strictly corresponds to the geometry of the lens blank surface to be coated. Thus, the same mold part can be used for transferring coatings onto lens blanks having surfaces of different specific geometries. Flexible mold parts would typically have a thickness of 0.3 to 5 mm. Preferably, the flexible mold part is made of polycarbonate, and in this case the thickness is from 0.5 to 1 mm.
Preferably, when moving relatively to each other the mold part and the blank, the contact between coating(s) and curable glue or between curable glue and lens blank geometrically defined surface occurs respectively in the center area of the coated mold part or in the center area of the lens blank geometrically defined surface.
In particular in the case of a flexible convex mold part, this convex mold part may have a shorter radius of curvature than the concave surface of the blank to be coated. Thus, pressure is applied at the center and the mold part is then deformed to conform to the blank surface. The glue layer is formed starting from the center of the blank, which avoids entrapping air bubbles within the final cured glue layer. The same will be true using a concave mold part of longer radius of curvature than a convex blank surface to be coated.
The lens blank can be a lens having one or both of its faces surfaced to the required geometry. (A lens having only one of its faces surfaced to the required geometry is called a semi-finished lend).
Preferably, the lens blank has a first face conferring progressive power and a second face conferring non-progressive power, but of spherical or torical shape onto which coating transfer according to the invention process is preferably performed. Preferably, the progressive face is the front face of the blank.
The lens blank can also be a semi-finished lens wherein one face of the lens, preferably the front face of the lens has previously been treated with an appropriate coating (anti-reflective, hard coat, etc . . . ) and the remaining face, preferably the rear face, of the lens is coated using the transfer process of the invention.
The lens blank can be pre-treated before applying the method of the invention.
The pre-treatment can be physical or chemical such as a solvent treatment or a NaOH treatment.
The transferred coating may comprise any coating layer or stack of coating layers classically used in the optical field, such as an anti-reflective coating layer, an anti-abrasion coating layer, an impact resistant coating layer, a polarized coating layer, a photochromic coating layer, an optical-electronical coating, an electric-photochromic coating, a dying coating layer, or a stack of two or more of these coating layers.
Typically, the total thickness of the coating to be transferred is less than 50 xcexcm, preferably less than 20 micrometers, or even better 10 xcexcm or less.
The glue or adhesive may be any curable glue, preferentially a thermally curable of photocurable glue or adhesive that will promote adhesion of the coating to the optical surface of the blank without impairing the optical properties of the finished lens.
The curable glue or adhesive can be polyurethane compounds, epoxy compounds, (meth)acrylate compounds such as polyethyleneglycol di(meth)acrylate, ethoxylated bisphenol A di(meth)acrylates.
Preferably, when cured, the glue layer has an even thickness. A glue from the Loctite Company is also recommended and isobornylacrylate.
As previously mentioned, the thickness of the final glue layer after curing is less than 100 xcexcm, preferably less than 80 xcexcm, most preferably less than 50 xcexcm and usually 1 to 30 xcexcm.
The lens blank may be made of any material suitable for making optical lenses but is preferably made of a plastic material and in particular of diethyleneglycol bis-allylcarbonate copolymer (CR-39(copyright) from PPG INDUSTRIES) or polycarbonate (PC).
The final lenses obtained by the method of the invention have very good optical quality and they have no or very low level of interference fringes.